Calendar, Calendar on the Wall

Well, folks, it’s that time of year again, time to dust off the New Year’s Resolutions and plan for the coming year’s work.

This year, I’ve resolved not to make any more resolutions. My to-do list is already quite full, thanks to my conversion to David Allen’s organizational system. If you’re wondering, I use OneNote as my base note-keeping device, but I’m having a problem finding a good calendaring system. In 2012, I used my standard annual pocketbook-sized calendar (a day planner) and experimented with coupling it with Google’s online calendar. It didn’t really work out as well as I had hoped, so for the coming year I’m trying something different. I’m keeping my day planner but moving up to the notebook size. I’m also using an office-oriented (i.e. no pictures) wall calendar with one month per page so that I can see everything that’s going on each month and plan my days accordingly.

I put a lot of things on my calendars, from the standard family birthdays to mileage to all of the genealogy institutes and society meetings that are important to me, even if I don’t plan to attend. Deadlines go in a different color and are underlined if they can’t be revised or missed. All events go in my day planner in one to three places, depending upon the event. Institutes, for instance, are entered under Important Dates, the pertinent month-at-a-glance, and then on each day they’re scheduled to be held. Finally, they’re written onto the wall calendar. Again, I do this even if I’m not planning to attend a given institute, if for no other reason than so that I can keep up with some of the major comings and goings in the genealogy world.

Hopefully, this system will help me stay on track in 2013. I’m not a super organized person, but the older I get, the more things I have going on. All these calendars may seem like overkill, but if they keep me from missing something important, then that’s good enough in my book.